


burning up (for you)

by lostinanotherworld24



Series: Clay Spenser: A Study in Dumbass [3]
Category: SEAL Team (TV)
Genre: Clay Has Issues, Gen, Hiding Medical Issues, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Sickfic, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:56:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22871368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinanotherworld24/pseuds/lostinanotherworld24
Summary: When "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," only applies in a court of law, or so Clay thinks. His hospital room would beg to differ.
Series: Clay Spenser: A Study in Dumbass [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1777708
Comments: 13
Kudos: 171





	burning up (for you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [burn_me_down](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burn_me_down/gifts).



> This is dedicated wholly to burn_me_down, because it was her that inspired this whole thing. Written to the dulcet sound of screaming, and published to the feeling of vindication. She's right, you know. 
> 
> Also: life's been rough recently, and so please have patience with the delayed update of WYL. I'm getting there! 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and don't forget to drop a review!

  
A sharp hacking cough rips from his chest, ferocious enough that he’s forced to sit up until it passes. Energy spent, he flops back down gracelessly onto his pillow and winces at the way his throat inflames whenever he swallows. Unseeingly, his hand searches the nightstand for the numbing spray Ray had sworn on a Bible was magic, but he ends up sending the damn thing flying halfway across the room.

He heaves a sigh and decides to try and sleep again. 

The house is quiet for once, all its regular occupants scattered across school and work. Clay appreciates Ray taking him in during this bout of illness, but for someone who was first an only child and then a single man, all five residents of the Perry house at once was a little overwhelming.

He’s not even that pleased to be stuck here in the first place, but his wheezed insistence that he could take care of himself hadn’t impressed either Jason or Blackburn. They’d deemed him too sick to be alone, and Ray had graciously offered his spare room, along with his mothering skills. At least once an hour he poked his head into Clay’s room, ensuring that the younger man was sleeping enough and drinking enough and hadn’t died yet.

Clay’s pretty sure that being a Navy SEAL means you don’t need to be mothered anymore, but he’d been sternly informed it wasn’t his decision and given more juice. Speaking of, he grabs at his phone and squints at the time, mentally doing the math on how long it’d been since Ray and Naima had left. A situation involving Cerberus biting someone and not letting go despite Brock’s commands had called Ray away, and a 10 car pileup beckoned Naima to the hospital. He’d waved them out the door with a smile, secretly cheering because now he could be miserable in peace.

A text buzzes his phone, Ray’s name sliding across the screen.

 _You doing ok? Shouldn’t be much longer. Have Naima check your temp_.

He rolls his eyes but grabs the thermometer from the bedside table, sticking it under his tongue. A minute or two later it beeps, and internally he winces at the reading of 104 degrees. After a minute of debate, he decides to reassure Ray; there is no reason to make him worry and rush home when NyQuil will do the job just fine.

_I’m fine. No fever._

Within ten minutes of chugging some NyQuil (he may or may not have been too exhausted to use a measuring cup), he’s fast asleep. 

XXXX

A hand on his shoulder and pressure on his finger drag him to awareness, the sound of beeping filtering in a few moments later. He feels like he’s been drugged, groggy and cotton-mouthed with little situational awareness. Opening his eyes does nothing for his confusion, as the white walls and blue chairs give no clues or hints.

“Clay, can you hear me?” A voice asks. “Clay.”

“Mmhm,” he mutters lowly, turning his head into his pillow.

“C’mon buddy you gotta wake up.”

He shakes his head. His eyes feel so heavy.   
The hand shakes him a bit more insistently.

“C’mon Clay. You’ve slept enough. Now get up.”

The voice that delivers this latest command is one he can’t actually ignore, one he’s been trained to follow to the grave and beyond. So he opens his eyes, blinks a couple of times to get the gunk out of them. There’s still a bit of blurriness at the edge of his vision, at the edge of him really, but he’s aware enough to get the general idea of things.

Jason stands at the end of his bed, hands braced on the railing at the foot of it. Ray is sat in a chair next to his bed, elbows propped on his knees and fingers steepled. A nurse had been the one shaking him awake, as she immediately leans over him with a penlight in hand. 

She studies the monitor next to his bed for a moment, before pressing the chilly silver of a stethoscope to his chest and telling him to breathe deep. She proclaims his breathing better, swipes a thermometer across his head, points out the TV remote and call button, and heads out of the room. He coughs a little, realizes it’s not as painful as before. He’s not even as cold as he was before, and he frowns down at the blanket as he tries to organize his thoughts.

“You’re in the hospital,” Jason begins, maintaining his position. “Ray came home at about seventeen-hundred on Monday and found you dead to the world- literally. When he couldn’t wake you, he called for an ambulance. They did some tests and discovered your flu had developed into a case of full-blown pneumonia. You were running a 106-degree fever, both lungs were infected, and you were minutes away from slipping into a coma.” 

Jason’s tone remains low and steady throughout his whole spiel, and that’s when Clay knows he’s fucked.

“If you weren’t in that hospital bed,” Ray speaks up from the chair. “Best believe you’d be getting the most severe ass-whipping of your life. Enjoy laying down now, cause when you’re healthy that’ll be a thing of a bygone era.” 

There’s a deep note of disappointment to Ray’s voice that makes Clay want to crawl into a hole and die. He didn’t mean for things to get so bad, he just hates people fussing over him. There’s no reason for his illness to interrupt other people’s daily lives and routines, and he tells them as much.

They stare at him in a moment of incredibly shocked silence, struck dumb by his statements. Jason abruptly shuts his mouth, before exchanging a glance with Ray.

“Kiddo, you know we love you, right?”

Clay blinks at Jason, unused to such a gushy statement of affection from his brick and mortar team leader.

“We can make up for missed shit in our daily lives. It’s no problem at all to reschedule appointments, do paperwork next to your bed, hell we’d even keep a running FaceTime with you while on base if that’s what it took. But what we can’t make up for is you. We can’t just find a new Bravo Six, that’s not the way it works.”

“I know your whole life has taught you differently, but you’re not disposable. We won’t just throw up our hands and walk away,” Ray interjects, staring at Clay intensely. “That’s not how normal relationships work. We’re in it for the long haul, but you gotta stick around, bud.”

The meds must be messing with his emotions, which is why tears are so hasty to swim to the surface of his eyes. He blinks hard and avoids their gazes, not enjoying how torn-open he feels right now. It seems as though every card he’s held close to his chest over the years is laid out on the table for the whole world to read. 

And bless Bravo One and Two for reading that exact feeling, and more importantly not making A Deal out of it. He hates fuss, especially when he’s vulnerable. It makes him feel like a caged animal, gives him the urge to snarl and snap his teeth (metaphorically). 

They simply pat his leg and arm and then inform him of the extensive treatment plan the doctors and the team have concocted. Apparently, he has several days of fun in the hospital to look forward to, before being passed back off to Ray, who has developed contingency plans for if he and Naima get called back to work at the same time. It’s over-preparation to the highest degree, but pointing that out only earns him dark glares and mutterings about all the hills he’ll soon be intimately acquainted with. 

Sonny’s angry with him, but that’s to be expected because it’s how he shows his concern. He promises with a glint in his eyes that he’s gonna tan Clay’s hide, forcing Clay to contemplate if he really wants his life ended by Sonny Quinn. Geez, he hid one little fever and suddenly it’s the worst thing ever.

Trent and Brock are silently disapproving, with some disappointment dancing at the edges. He knows he makes decisions they wish he wouldn’t and that stresses them out, but he’s been causing heartache his whole life. His mom didn’t get into the early grave on her own, after all.

(At this stage in life, he’s too much his own person to change just because people disagree. Trent and Brock can be as pissy as they like, his decisions make sense to him and that’s all that really matters. They can deal if they have an issue with it).

Most surprisingly of all, it’s Eric Blackburn that seems to have suffered the greatest upset.

He sits Clay down one day, when Clay is still stuck in this weird space of desperately wanting to be better, but having no energy. That means he’s confined to base for the morning catching up on paperwork, and spending his afternoons sleeping. Eric catches him while he’s doing paperwork.

Almost noiselessly the door shuts behind the commander, a weight settling over the room. Clay sets down his pen and leans back, studying his superior with quick, careful eyes. He’s prey locked in the eyes of a predator, engaged in a careful dance.

“You understand why what you did was unacceptable!?” Eric opens, choosing a chair across from Clay. After a moment’s thought, Clay nods.

“You chose to try and play the lone wolf, to not ask for help when it was needed. Your team is there to support you in times of trouble, to carry you when you cannot walk. When you lie to them willfully, it only creates distrust and ensures that this team cannot function at its highest level. You understand? When you’re out there in the wilds of Afghanistan, or Russia, or anywhere else, that cannot be the case.”

A sense of guilt begins to slip over Clay, and he lets his head droop forward. He hadn’t meant to cause any trouble.

“We’re never gonna be bothered by you needing help, because even the greatest of us cannot go it alone. Nothing was ever won by a singular effort, but instead, by a million small efforts all combined. You just gotta keep that in mind, okay?”

Clay nods, emotion crawling up his spine and consuming him entirely. Eric nods as well and raps the table with his knuckles.

“Every action has a consequence,” he informs Clay as he stands up. “Based on some conversation I overheard between the elder members of Bravo....you better enjoy sitting in that chair while you still can.”

Dread sinks heavier than a stone in Clay’s stomach at Eric's knowing chuckle. 


End file.
